2011 in literature

Events

July – J. K. Rowling terminates her relationship with long-standing agent Christopher Little to join rival Neil Blair.

September 24 – The first 100 Thousand Poets for Change Day takes place, the organisation having been founded by Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion in March.

November 12 – Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Literature Museum Library opens in Istanbul, Turkey.

Fiction

Chris Adrian – The Great Night

David Almond – The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean

Kevin Barry – City of Bohane

Giannina Braschi – United States of Banana

T. C. Boyle – When the Killing's Done

Geraldine Brooks – Caleb's Crossing

Bonnie Jo Campbell – Once Upon a River

Patrick deWitt – The Sisters Brothers

E. L. Doctorow – All the Time in the World

Steve Earle – I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

Jeffrey Eugenides – The Marriage Plot

Jonathan Evison – West of Here

Robb Forman Dew – Being Polite to Hitler

Charles Frazier – Nightwoods

James Frey – The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Roxane Gay – Ayiti (short stories)

Abdulrazak Gurnah – The Last Gift

Benjamin Hale – The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore

Ron Hansen – A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion

Chad Harbach – The Art of Fielding

Philip Hensher – King of the Badgers

Alan Hollinghurst – The Stranger's Child

E. L. James – Fifty Shades of Grey

Mat Johnson – Pym

Stephen Kelman – Pigeon English

Ben Lerner – Leaving the Atocha Station

Merethe Lindstrøm – Days in the History of Silence

Andrew Miller – Pure

Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹) – 1Q84

Téa Obreht – The Tiger's Wife

Daniel Olivas – The Book of Want

Michael Ondaatje – The Cat's Table

Ann Patchett – State of Wonder

Chuck Palahniuk – Damned

Tom Perrotta – The Leftovers

Arthur Phillips – The Tragedy of Arthur

Nina Revoyr – Wingshooters

Rodrigo Rey Rosa – Severina (novella)

Karen Russell – Swamplandia!

Stig Sæterbakken – Through the Night

John Sayles – A Moment in the Sun

Dana Spiotta – Stone Arabia

Colm Tóibín – The Empty Family

David Foster Wallace – The Pale King

Daniel Woodrell – The Outlaw Album

Children and young people

Chris Van Allsburg - Queen of the Falls

Chris Van Allsburg - The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales

David Almond – The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean

Josephine Angelini – Starcrossed (Spain release)

Kelley Armstrong – The Gathering

K. A. Applegate – Re-release of Animorphs books

The Invasion

The Visitor

Andy Griffiths – The 13-Storey Treehouse (first in the Treehouse series of seven books)

Cynthia Hand – Unearthly

Anthony Horowitz – Scorpia Rising

Jon Klassen – I Want My Hat Back

Gordon Korman, Peter Lerangis, Rick Riordan, and Jude Watson – Vespers Rising

Maxine Kumin (with Barry Moser) – Oh, Harry!

Derek Landy – Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked

Patricia McKissack (with Leo and Diane Dillon) - Never Forgotten

Courtney Allison Moulton – Angelfire

Brandon Mull – Beyonders: A World Without Heroes

Christopher Paolini – Inheritance

Jerry Pinkney (adaption) – Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Rick Riordan

The Throne of Fire

The Son of Neptune

Douglas Wood (with Barry Moser) - Franklin and Winston: A Christmas That Changed the World

Poetry

See 2011 in poetry.

Rae Armantrout – Money Shot (February)

Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi – Meri Tasveer (Urdu, "My Portrait")

Susan Howe – That This (February)

Alice Notley – Culture of One (March)

Billy Collins – Horoscopes for the Dead (April)

Michael Palmer – Thread (May)

Sarah Palin (edited by Michael Solomon) – I Hope Like Heck (June 21,)

Drama

Richard Bean – One Man, Two Guvnors (adaptation)

Alecky Blythe – London Road (musical verbatim theatre)

Nick Dear – Frankenstein

Vivienne Franzmann – Mogadishu

Rodrigo García – Golgota Picnic

Stephen Adly Guirgis – The Motherfucker with the Hat

Sam Holcroft – Edgar and Annabel

Stephen Karam – Sons of the Prophet

Andrew Motion – Incoming

Sixty-Six Books

Science fiction and fantasy

Joe Abercrombie – The Heroes

Daniel Abraham

The Dragon's Path

Leviathan Wakes (writing as James S.A. Corey, with Ty Franck)

Ann Aguirre – Aftermath

Greg Bear – Halo: Cryptum

Lauren Beukes – Zoo City

Alex Bledsoe

Dark Jenny

The Hum and the Shiver

M. M. Buckner – The Gravity Pilot

Robert Buettner – Undercurrents

Jack Campbell – The Lost Frontier: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnought

Orson Scott Card – The Lost Gate

Michael Crichton & Richard Preston – Micro

Ian Douglas – Center of Gravity

David Anthony Durham – The Sacred Band

Greg Egan – The Clockwork Rocket

Kate Elliott – Cold Fire

C. S. Friedman – Legacy of Kings

Steven Gould – The 7th Sigma

Michael Grant — Plague

Mira Grant – Deadline

Lev Grossman – The Magician King

Stephen Hunt – The Rise of the Iron Moon

N. K. Jemisin – The Kingdom of Gods

Richard Kadrey – Aloha from Hell

Stephen King — 11/22/63

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller – Ghost Ship

Pittacus Lore — The Power of Six

Richard Matheson – Other Kingdoms

George R. R. Martin – A Dance with Dragons

Jack McDevitt – Firebird

China Miéville – Embassytown

Andrew Miller – Pure

Karen Miller – A Blight of Mages

Richard K. Morgan – The Cold Commands

Joseph Nassise – Eyes to See

Terry Pratchett – Snuff

Cherie Priest – Ganymede

Hannu Rajaniemi – The Quantum Thief

Brian Ruckley – The Edinburgh Dead

Brandon Sanderson – The Alloy of Law

John Scalzi – Fuzzy Nation

Dan Simmons – Flashback

Neal Stephenson – Reamde

Charles Stross – Rule 34

Michael Swanwick – Dancing with Bears

Catherynne M. Valente – Deathless

Vernor Vinge – The Children of the Sky

Jo Walton – Among Others

David Weber – How Firm a Foundation

Robert Charles Wilson – Vortex

Daniel Wilson – Robopocalypse

Gene Wolfe – Home Fires

Crime and thrillers

Jeff Abbott – Adrenaline

Ace Atkins – The Ranger

Kate Atkinson – Started Early, Took My Dog

Steve Berry – The Jefferson Key

James Lee Burke – Feast Day of Fools

Lee Child – The Affair

Edward Conlon – Red on Red

Michael Connelly – The Fifth Witness

John Connolly – The Burning Soul

Jeffery Deaver – Carte Blanche

Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee – Forbidden

Ted Dekker – The Priest's Graveyard

Ranj Dhaliwal – Daaku: The Gangster's Life

Sue Grafton – V is for Vengeance

John Grisham – The Litigators

Morag Joss – Among the Missing

Stuart M. Kaminsky – A Whisper to the Living

Joe R. Lansdale – Hyenas: a Hap and Leonard Novella and Devil Red

Henning Mankell – The Troubled Man

Jo Nesbø – The Snowman

T. Jefferson Parker – The Border Lords

George Pelecanos – The Cut

Ralph Peters – The Officers' Club

James Rollins – The Devil's Colony

John Sandford – Buried Prey

Marcus Sakey – The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes

Bernard J. Schaffer – Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes]]

Duane Swierczynski – Fun and Games

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan – The Night Eternal

Nicolaas Vergunst – Knot of Stone

Ferdinand von Schirach – Der Fall Collini (The Collini Case)

S. J. Watson – Before I Go to Sleep

Non-fiction

Peter Bergen – The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda

Abhinav Bindra – A Shot at History: My Obsessive Journey to Olympic Gold

Mark Bowden – Worm: The First Digital World War

Frank Brady – Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer

Michael Bronski – A Queer History of the United States

David Brooks – The Social Animal

Brian Christian – The Most Human Human

Richard Dawkins – The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True

Douglas Edwards – I'm Feeling Lucky

T. J. English – The Savage City: Race, Murder and a Generation on the Edge

Ulrich Eberl – Life in 2050

Tina Fey – Bossypants

Joshua Foer – Moonwalking with Einstein

James Gleick – The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

Brian Greene – The Hidden Reality

Matthew Hollis – Now All Roads Lead to France

Louis Hyman – Debtor Nation

Steve Inskeep – Instant City

David King – Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris

Joshua Knelman – Hot Art

Erik Larson – In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

Joseph Lelyveld – Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India

Steven Levy – In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives

Charles C. Mann – 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

David McCullough – The Greater Journey

Ben Mezrich – Sex on the Moon

Scott Miller – The President and the Assassin

Errol Morris – Believing is Seeing

Grant Morrison – Supergods

Joyce Carol Oates – A Widow's Story

Patton Oswalt – Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland

Dana Priest – Top Secret America

Annie Proulx – Bird Cloud: A Memoir

Janet Reitman – Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion

Tom Shales & J. A. Miller – Those Guys Have All the Fun

Sylvain Tesson – The Consolations of the Forest

Sarah Vowell – Unfamiliar Fishes

Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie – The Declaration of Independents

Daniel Yergin – The Quest

Mitchell Zuckoff – Lost in Shangri-La

Deaths

January 2 – Robert Trumble, Australian writer (born 1919)

January 4

Eva Strittmatter, German author and poet (born 1930)

Dick King-Smith English children's writer (born 1922)

January 10 – Joe Gores, American novelist and screenwriter (born 1931)

January 11 – Marcel Trudel, Canadian historian and author (born 1917)

January 14 – Sun Axelsson, Swedish novelist (born 1935)

January 15 – Romulus Linney, American playwright (born 1930)

January 16 – R. F. Langley, English poet and diarist (born 1938)

January 17 – Jean Dutourd, French novelist (born 1920)

January 19 – Wilfrid Sheed, English-born American novelist and essayist (born 1930)

January 20

F. A. Nettelbeck,American poet (born 1950)

Reynolds Price, American author (born 1933)

January 22 – Park Wan-suh, South Korean novelist (born 1931)

January 23 – Novica Tadić, Serbian poet (born 1949)

January 24 – Anna Yablonskaya, Ukrainian playwright and poet (born 1981)

January 25 – Vincent Cronin, English writer (born 1924)

January 29

Loreen Rice Lucas, Canadian author (born 1914)

Hemayel Martina, Curaçaon poet (born 1990)

January 30 – Hisaye Yamamoto, Japanese American author (born 1921)

February 2 – Eric Nicol, Canadian author (born 1919)

February 3 – Édouard Glissant, Martinique poet and critic writing in French (born 1928)

February 5

Charles E. Silberman, American author (born 1925)

Martin Quigley, Jr., American author and publisher (born 1917)

Brian Jacques, English children's writer (born 1939)

February 9 – David Sánchez Juliao, Colombian author and diplomat (born 1945)

February 13 – Oakley Hall III, American playwright (born 1950)

February 15 – Judith Binney, New Zealand author (born 1940)

February 16

Justinas Marcinkevičius, Lithuanian poet and playwright (born 1930)

Hans Joachim Alpers, German science fiction author (born 1943)

February 17

Perry Moore, American author (born 1971)

Vivien Noakes, English biographer and critic (born 1937)

James McLure, American playwright (born 1951)

February 18 – Victor Martinez, US poet and novelist (born 1954)

February 19 – Max Wilk, American playwright, screenwriter and author (born 1920)

February 22 – Ion Hobana, Romanian science fiction author (born 1931)

February 25

Manny Fried, American playwright and actor (born 1913)

Aminath Faiza, Maldivian poet and writer in the Dhivehi language (born 1924)

February 26 – Arnošt Lustig, Czech author (born 1926)

February 28 – Netiva Ben-Yehuda, Israeli author (born 1928)

March 2 – Thor Vilhjálmsson, Icelandic author (born 1925)

March 3 – May Cutler, Canadian author and publisher (born 1923)

March 5 – Alberto Granado, Argentine-born Cuban biochemist and writer (born 1922)

March 8

Iraj Afshar, Iranian bibliographer and historian (born 1925)

Steven Kroll, American children's author (born 1941)

March 9 – Doris Burn, American children's author and illustrator (born 1923)

March 13 – Leo Steinberg, American art historian and critic (born 1920)

March 14 – Giora Leshem, Israeli poet and publisher (born 1940)

March 19 – Raymond Garlick, English-born Welsh poet and editor (born 1926)

March 26 – Diana Wynne Jones, English children's fantasy novelist (born 1934)

March 27 – H. R. F. Keating, English crime novelist (born 1926)

April 2 – Paul Violi, American poet (born 1944)

April 3 – Ulli Beier, German writer, editor and scholar (born 1922)

April 4 – Craig Thomas, Welsh novelist (born 1942)

April 6 – Thøger Birkeland, Danish children's writer (born 1922)

April 10 – Stephen Watson, South African writer and critic in English (born 1954)

April 12 – Sachin Bhowmick, Indian screenwriter (born 1930)

April 14

Rosihan Anwar, Indonesian journalist (born 1922)

Patrick Cullinan, South African poet and biographer (born 1933)

April 16 – William A. Rusher, American columnist and publisher (born 1923)

April 17 – Bob Block, English comedy writer (born 1921)

April 19 – Anne Blonstein, English poet (born 1958)

April 20 – Madelyn Pugh, American screenwriter (born 1921)

April 21 – W. J. Gruffydd (Elerydd), Welsh-language poet (born 1916)

April 25 – Gonzalo Rojas, Chilean poet (born 1917)

April 29

Abdul Hameed, Pakistani novelist (born 1928)

Joanna Russ, American science fiction author (born 1937)

April 30

Richard Holmes, English military historian (born 1946)

Ernesto Sabato, Argentine writer (born 1911)

May 4 – Frans Sammut, Maltese writer (born 1945)

May 5 – Arthur Laurents, American playwright, librettist and screenwriter (born 1917)

May 9 – Newton Thornburg, American novelist (born 1929)

May 10 – Patrick Galvin, Irish poet and dramatist (born 1927)

May 11 – Reach Sambath, Cambodian journalist (born 1964)

May 13

Pam Gems, English playwright (born 1925)

Badal Sarkar, Indian dramatist (born 1925)

May 14 – Birgitta Trotzig, Swedish novelist and poet (born 1929)

May 15 – Martin Woodhouse, English novelist, screenwriter and inventor (born 1932)

May 19 – William Kloefkorn, American poet (born 1932)

May 21 – Pádraig Kennelly, Irish journalist, publisher and editor (born 1938)

May 22 – Chidananda Dasgupta, Indian film critic (born 1921)

May 23 – Roberto Sosa, Honduran poet (heart attack, born 1930)

May 25

Leonora Carrington, British-born Mexican painter and novelist (born 1917)

Edwin Honig, American poet and translator (born 1919)

Yannis Varveris, Greek poet, critic and translator (born 1955)

May 30 – Marek Siemek,Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy (born 1942)

June 4 – Curth Flatow, German dramatist and screenwriter (born 1920)

June 7 – Jorge Semprún, Spanish writer and politician (born 1923)

June 10 – Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, English travel writer and novelist, (born 1915)

June 13 – Burt Styler, American screenwriter (born 1925)

June 18 – Cheryl B, American poet and spoken word artist (born 1972)

June 21 – Robert Kroetsch, Canadian novelist and poet (car crash, born 1927)

June 22 – Zbyněk Zeman, Czech historian (born 1928)

June 29 – K. D. Sethna, Indian poet, writer and cultural critic (born 1904)

July 7 – Olav Versto, Norwegian journalist and editor (drowning, born 1950)

July 3 – Iain Blair (Emma Blair), Scottish romance novelist (born 1942)

July 11 – Henry Carlisle, American translator, novelist and activist (born 1926)

July 16 – Geraint Bowen, Welsh poet (born 1915)

July 18 – Georgess McHargue, American author and poet (born 1941)

July 20 – Blaize Clement, American mystery writer and psychologist (born 1932)

July 22 – Ifti Nasim, Pakistani-born American poet and radio host (born in literature)

July 27 – Agota Kristof, Hungarian novelist writing in French (born 1935)

July 28 – Ahmed Omaid Khpalwak, Afghan journalist (killed in explosion, born c. 1958)

July 30 – Pêr Denez, French Breton linguist and writer (born 1921)

July 31 – Eliseo Alberto, Cuban-born Mexican novelist, essayist and journalist (born 1951)

August 1 – Stan Barstow, English novelist (born 1928)

August 3 – Simona Monyová, Czech novelist (murdered, born 1967)

August 10 – Selwyn Griffith, Welsh poet (born 1928)

August 17 – Michel Mohrt, French writer (born 1914)

August 26 – Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, American novelist (born 1940)

August 27 – N. F. Simpson, English dramatist (born 1919)

September 9

Herbert Lomas, English poet (born 1924)

Khairy Shalaby, Egyptian novelist and dramatist (born 1938)

September 14 – Frank Parkin, Welsh sociologist and novelist (born 1931)

September 22

Cengiz Dağcı, Crimean Tatar novelist and poet writing in Turkish (born 1919)**Margaret Ogola, Kenyan novelist (born 1958)

September 23 – José Miguel Varas, Chilean writer (born 1928)

September 26 – David Zelag Goodman, American screenwriter (born 1930)

September 27

David Croft, English television writer and producer (born 1922)

Sara Douglass, Australian fantasy author (ovarian cancer, born 1957)

September 29 – Hella Haasse, Dutch novelist (born 1918)

October 4 – Vittorio Curtoni, Italian science fiction writer and translator (born 1949)

October 10 – Uno Röndahl, Swedish writer (born 1924)

October 11 – Ewald Osers, Czech translator and poet (born 1917)

October 12 – Lowell H. Harrison, American historian (born 1922)

October 15 – Earl McRae, Canadian journalist (born 1942)

October 18

Paul Everac, Romanian writer (born 1924)

Friedrich Kittler, German literary scholar and media theorist (born 1943)

October 19

Kakkanadan, Indian Malayalam writer (born 1935)

Bohdan Osadchuk, Ukrainian historian and journalist (born 1920)

October 21

Hikmet Bilâ, Turkish journalist and author (lung cancer, born 1954)

Tone Pavček, Slovenian author and translator (born 1928)

October 23

Florence Parry Heide, American children's author (born 1919)

Bogdan Zakrzewski, Polish historian and researcher of Polish literature (born 1916)

October 24 – Morio Kita (北 杜夫), Japanese novelist, essayist and psychiatrist (born 1927)

November 3

H. G. Francis, German science fiction author (born 1936)

Morris Philipson, American novelist and publisher (born 1926)

November 21

Arie van Deursen, Dutch historian (born 1931)

Theodore Enslin, American poet (born 1925)

Anne McCaffrey, American fantasy writer (born 1926)

November 25 – Leonid Borodin, Russian novelist, journalist and Soviet dissident, (born 1938)

November 26 – Rashid Karim, Bangladeshi novelist (born 1925)

November 30

Ana Daniel, Portuguese poet (born 1928)

Partap Sharma, Indian playwright (born 1939)

December 15 – Christopher Hitchens, English journalist and commentator (esophageal cancer, born 1949)

December 20 – Barry Reckord, Jamaican playwright (born 1926)

December 23 – Tripuraneni Maharadhi, Indian screenwriter (born 1930)

December 27 – Thinley Norbu, Tibetan Buddhist writer and teacher (born 1931)

December 30 – Eleanor Ross Taylor, American poet (born 1920)

December 31 – Penny Jordan, English romantic novelist (born 1946)

Awards

October 6 – Nobel Prize in Literature: Tomas Tranströmer

Europe Theatre Prize: Peter Stein

Camões Prize: Manuel António Pina

Australia

Miles Franklin Award: Kim Scott, That Deadman Dance

Canada

Amazon.ca First Novel Award: David Bezmozgis, The Free World

Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Helen Waldstein Wilkes, Letters from the Lost

Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Main award, Farzana Doctor; honours of distinction, Dani Couture, Matthew J. Trafford.

Governor General's Awards: Multiple categories; see 2011 Governor General's Awards.

Scotiabank Giller Prize: Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues

Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction: Charles Foran, Mordecai: The Life and Times

Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award: Wayne Johnston

United Kingdom

October 18 – Man Booker Prize: Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Orange Prize for Fiction: Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife

United States

April – Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2011 Lambda Literary Awards.

National Book Award for Fiction: to Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

National Book Critics Circle Award: to Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg by Deborah Eisenberg

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Scott Blackwood, Ryan Call, Daniel Orozco, Teddy WayneNonfiction: Paul ClemensPlays: Amy HerzogPoetry: Don Mee Choi, Eduardo C. Corral, Shane McCrae, Kerri Webster